The Future Forward
by docs pupil
Summary: Twenty-five years after the Battle of Hoover Dam, the Courier's daughter enacts her mother's last wishes, as the world comes to the brink of collapse once more. With a new Roman Legionary force attacking not only Hoover Dam, but all major settlements and towns, one woman must, again, gather the forces of old to combat a new threat to the stability of a post-apocalyptic world.
1. Back to the Start

_This is the last will and testament of Serenity Darrenforth. Should my confidants or kindred be_ _listen_ _ing_ _to_ _this_ _recorded message_ _now, I am either dead or have been missing for three years. I make this will with sound body and mind hoping that you can contact these people one last time to let them know of my fate in person rather than a letter_ _sent by courier_ _. Whether they, themselves, are alive or dead, leave the envelope with their corresponding name either with them, or on their grave._

 _Arcade Gannon- former researcher for the Followers of the Apocalypse_ _, doctor_

 _Craig Boone- former New California Republic sniper, first recon division_

 _Veronica Santangelo- former Brotherhood of Steel scribe, procurement specialist_

 _Rose of Sharon Cassidy- former caravan leader and owner_ _,_ _called "Cass_ _"_

 _Raul Tejada- former "Ghost of Mexico City"_ _,_ _ghoul_

 _Lily Bowen-_ _former vault dweller,_ _Nightkin mutant_

 _If you come across a partially cyberized dog named Rex, be nice to_ _him_ _._ _He and this Eyebot named ED-E_ _traveled with me once, and deserve respect._

 _Good luck on the road. I hope you find the same excitement and adventure I did._

The woman clears her throat.

 _And if you get any ideas about following my trail, don't, you've been warned. And ED-E, don't you dare help them._

A young woman in her early twenties rushes from the a living room to a bedroom, and wrenches open a dusty wardrobe. She digs through the numerous light armors, pulling a number thirteen armored jumpsuit from a hangar. "ED-E," the girl prompts, slipping into the suit. "I want you to replay one of your logs."

The battered Eyebot inquires as to which one.

She adjusts the buckles of the armor pieces. "The one with my mother on it."

He complies.

 _In the background, there's automatic gun fire from numerous sources._

 _"ED-E," the Courier yells, over the shots of lasers. "You need to get out of here, I'll cover you!" The metallic clap of a six-shooter being reloaded is heard in the foreground, presumably hers._

 _Distressed beeps from her robo-companion tell her otherwise._

 _"ED-E please don't argue! I need you to go home to tell my family! Can you do that for me?!"_

 _More distressed beeping followed by his modified energy zapper and her quick police pistol shots firing at their assailants._

 _What sounds like a crashing of metal reverberates thorough his speakers._

 _"ED-E," the woman screams. "Don't you dare die on me!" A muffled rumpling all over his speakers drowns out the fighting temporarily._

 _Recorded ED-E beeps sadly._

 _"Oh no you're not," Plastic colliding with plastic and a softly rusty squeaking noise are still clearly heard even as the warped noises of lasers echoes closer and closer. "Because I'm giving you all of these energy cells."_

 _He beeps high and low in protest, then a whooshing whirring noise replaces the soft clinks._

 _"ED-E go home," the Courier whispers into the speaker. "Override code: Fly far, fly fast."_

 _The floating robot, most likely realizing what his master has done to him, beeps at her sadly once more before speeding away from the gunfight noises._

 _A faint struggle and a loud thud can be heard as the recording ends._

From a footlocker at the end of the queen-sized bed, she grabs her mother's old black and brown Pip-Boy and a stack of six old letters labeled "IN CASE I DIE, SEND THESE". "Do you wanna go find her, Ed?" She pats the top of his orb-shaped body.

He makes a quick series of beeps and boops in an excited fashion.

"Even against her wishes?" The daughter narrows her eyes at the robot.

ED-E floats off to the front door in a determined fashion, waiting impatiently for her to open it.

The girl slings a pristinely kept scoped hunting rifle onto her shoulder, and a broad machete into her pack. She grabs a red baseball cap from a shelf of hats next to the door, gesturing to the robotic messenger. "Let's go find her, then."


	2. The First Steps

The Long 15

At dusk, the young woman looks back from where she began one last time, shading her eyes against the orange and gold of the distant desert sun. She keeps a steady pace along the broken highway winding between the derelict cars and trucks, her companion close behind.

A warm wind kicks up the tumbleweeds and dust, whistling through the hollowed out shells of vehicles and trailers half-buried in the dirt.

On a parallel course is a lone merchant and their pack Brahmin surrounded by a guard at each side talking the other leg of the same highway.

The lady double checks her Pip-Boy map as the road lingers on farther toward two giant figures in the distance. "According to the map, an NCR trading post should be at the end of the Long Fifteen heading east. If we keep following the mess of cars and trucks, there should be a nearly untouched piece of highway that ends in a chain link fence directly connected to the post."

The aged robot hums along in the dry air, keeping a watchful eye for enemies. After a few minutes of peaceful silence, broken by the occasional sound of mooing and jangling, ED-E turns his orb-shaped body towards the hills to the immediate left, stopping abruptly.

The young lady does the same, drawing her rifle as she looks up at the same hills. "Is it trouble, Ed?"

There's a feminine sounding shout of "Over there!" from directly uphill of them.

The robot fires up his cowboy attack tune and hastily whizzes off toward the voice and sudden laser pistol shots.

As the girl follows her robot uphill, another shout in a different voice tells her whomever they were chasing is getting away.

Over the reverberation of lasers is the unmistakable sounds of small, buckling, pneumatic joints.

"Hiya!" A petite figure in a white lab coat and headscarf slugs one of the surrounding Radscorpion right in the face with what looks like a heated power fist on her right hand. It kills over almost dramatically, crisply baking in its own venomous juices.

The girl stops at the crest of the hill watching as the other three coats manage to take down the other two creatures with a few more shots of their weapons.

Finding the battle over before it started, ED-E floats over to the only one sporting the gauntlet, beeping happily in their presence.

"I thought that was you," the same womanly voice says from underneath the head kerchief. "Where's your shadow?"

"Veronica, is that a real eye-bot," a dark-haired black woman carrying a heavily-laden backpack asks, reaching out hesitantly to touch the floating sphere.

"You've got to be kidding me," the tall Caucasian man of the group says with an air of disbelief. "A real propaganda bot all the way out here?"

They crowd around ED-E as tries to fly off back to his young charge's side.

The daughter holsters her gun, running toward the group to get a better look at their coats. As she suspected, a red circle inlayed with an arrow-tipped red cross on the shoulders of their visible coat sleeves. "Followers of the Apocalypse."

All four shift their focus from the bot to the girl in the armored jumpsuit.

The kindly looking older woman smiles at her as she approaches. She folds back her kerchief a little ways, revealing a few stray grey and dark brown hairs as her discerning eye scrutinizes the new arrival and her familiar armor. "The new shadow, I see."

The young lady narrows her eyes at the woman for a moment as if trying to remember something. She reaches into her side satchel and digs out an old black and white photograph, carefully looking over the faces of the human women in it. It hits her like a Super Sledge who this woman is. "You're Veronica Santangelo, former Brotherhood Scribe and companion to the Courier."

"Veronica," the second, shorter man behind her prompts, brushing his dusty brown hair from his sweaty face. "Is this a friend of yours?"

"I'm not sure yet." Her calm, but quietly discerning expression stays on the girl, waiting for an answer. "Are you?"

The young lady clears her throat. "Miss Santangelo." She inclines her head out of respect before reaching into her inventory for a stack of old letters. "My mother told me to give this letter to you in the event she, uh, couldn't be located." The daughter hands her the envelope with her name on it.

"Sounds…important." Veronica turns the parchment colored envelope over in her unarmed hand, finding no identifying stationary or special stamps of the NCR. "Is this from who I think it is?"

"Yes ma'am, the Courier of the Mojave herself." The daughter smiles at the thought.

A quiet, collective gasp rises from the three Followers around the old woman.

At hearing this turn of phrase, Veronica's lip curves into a small smile.

"You're lying." The dark-haired woman with the over-stuffed pack immediately revokes her claim with zeal. "Anyone can claim they know the Courier."

"No, it's her." the former Scribe cocks her head at the writing across the front, recognizing the irregular slant of the letters. "She really writes like this."

"Are you positive?" The shorter man brings up his doubts about her claim. "This woman could have written it in the real Courier's place."

"It's plausible," the taller of the two men in the group says in her defense. "No one else has ever worn a genuine reinforced jumpsuit labeled with the number thirteen after the Courier. Look at the material here." As the taller man approaches her to touch the elbow of the suit under the leather plates, she pulls away, almost annoyed.

ED-E flying in between her and his grabbing hands, beeping in a similarly annoyed manner at him.

Veronica slips the letter into her coat pocket, clearing her throat with a stern "ahem". "How about instead of arguing, we finish what we came here to do and meet back at the outpost." She waits for a their grumbles of approval before the band draws their weapons and heads off father into the mountains. As they wander out of sight, the old woman turns to the daughter, readjusting her head scarf. "Lead the way, fearless leader."

The daughter looks to ED-E who hovers next to the scribe, waiting for the girl to take the lead. She shrugs, seeing her mind made up for her. "Let's go."

The Mojave Outpost

Where the broken highway meets the rickety chain link fence of the Mojave Outpost, Republic guards tend to the Pre-War road blocks into and out of the Wasteland's eastern boundary. Each guard shack has a single soldier inside with another tending the left and right of the gate not too far away, their weapons always at the ready.

Slow moving lines of merchants and their guards are allow passage one by one after they examine what the young lady assumes is paper registrations.

She and her troupe join the back of the line behind an antsy Brahmin, with the former wondering what all the security is about. "I thought mom said the roads were mostly empty and the gate was always locked, no exceptions," the girl points out, noting the changes to the infrastructure.

"Since everybody assumes the Legion was basically destroyed in the last war, the NCR thought they should open up the Long Fifteen to New California again." Veronica peeks around the hind quarters of the over-sized bovine, counting how many people are still in front of them. "It's mostly safe nowadays except for the occasional party of Raiders."

The line moves up a few paces.

"Have you traveled across territories often," the girl wonders, genuinely curious. "It's a pretty long trip."

"I only went to New California with 'you-know-who' once," Veronica clarifies, adding a devious tone to the vague reference of her mother. "Mostly for the exciting amount of paperwork involved with being 'Liaison to the Native Factions'." The covered woman adds a slightly excited emphasis to the words.

Still confused, the girl asks the obvious. "What exactly does that mean, Miss Santangelo?"

"I help with trade between what's left of the Brotherhood and the Followers in the Mojave most of the time," she tells her quite matter-of-factly. "Sometimes the NCR too if they get into our business."

The line moves up once more.

The daughter tugs at her rifle strap. "I thought Ambassador Crocker officiated the relationships between everyone."

A slightly sour expression crosses her face, as she rests the knuckles of her power fist against her hip. "He does, but I turn the 'hello Brotherhood of Steel, this is the Followers of the Apocalypse, and we want to be friends' to 'We'll trade food for power cells'."

"Ah..." the realization of the importance of the Followers job dawns on the young woman as the line moves up once more. "He's the brain, you're the hands."

"Exactly."

Without so much as a pause from the soldiers, the barricade arm is lifted automatically for the woman in Followers garb as she reaches the front of the line.

"Ma'am." The soldiers nearby salute her as she walks past the road block with only a friendly wave of her super-heated gauntlet.

"At ease, boys, just passing through," she jokes as they relax at her mock command.

The daughter is in awe of the power she wields with just her title as they head into the canteen to sleep the dawning night away.

Leaving the young lady to her bartering at the bar out front, Veronica Santangelo shuffles over to the one of the empty double bunks in the next room, plopping down on the lower one nearest her. The middle-aged woman rubs at the forming bags under her tired eyes with her free hand, trying to ignore the heavy feeling from her old body. After a full day of tracking, fighting, and training new Followers, her muscles are ready to give out for the night, but with a resolute breath, she forces herself to do one more thing before bedding down for the night. She reaches into her coat pocket to retrieve her old friends letter. "Nothing fancy about it," she notes, expecting her to have some sort of monogrammed stationary or Seal of the Republic of some form on everything she owns. "I guess she really did leave after all." She gingerly tears open the parchment envelope, unfolding the letter inside even more carefully.

 _Dear Veronica,_

 _How have you been doing? Well, I'm assuming. If you're reading this now, I'm dead, and possibly for good this time. If I remember correctly, you joined up with the Followers permanently after your ceremony. Are you having fun on your own? Done anything interesting since their expansion? I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what happened to the Bunker before Hoover Dam, but since I'm not here anymore, I thought you should know, even if you weren't on the best of terms with them. Please forgive me, Veronica, but I destroyed it in the name of the NCR. Before I left the Wasteland, I went back and made peace with the place, and to think about what I could have done differently. Also, you were right, the NCR is just as zealously stubborn as the Brotherhood is. I wish it had never come to that, if only for your sake. If you don't feel right with the world, remember why you chose your path in the first place._

 _Sincerely,_

" _The Courier"_

 _P.S,_

 _That's not my real name…_

The former scribe sits quietly, staring at the words on the page for a good long while. In her wildest dreams, she could never have conceived what her dearest friend just confessed. All these years, she thought it might have been lucky super mutants, or infighting, or even the Republic itself sending soldiers en masse and overwhelming them, causing the Brotherhood to destroy themselves.

But it was always her, all this time.

"What do you mean registration?" The Courier's daughter looks on in disbelief as the merchant pushes her random wares back across the counter. "I only need to trade some things, not cross the territorial border."

The man behind the counter gives her a stern look. "Because you have bottle caps and no NCR money, I'm require to ask for some registration. Don't bite my head off because of outpost rules," the merchant says in a defensive manner.

The young lady raises her voice slightly. "This is ridiculous, my caps are just as good as Republic notes, or else I wouldn't have been able to get here in the first place."

"I understand that, but rules are rules. Go get registered in the next building over, then we'll trade." He waves in the general direction of the office next door. "It closes at sundown."

She checks the time on her Pip-Boy before angrily stuffing her miscellaneous junk back into her satchel heading to the next room for some shut-eye. "This is dumb. You're going to loose a lot of business operating like this."

The merchant sighs as she leaves the room. "Like I don't already know that."

Her and ED-E make their way to the nearest bunk bed, the young lady plopping down on the worn mattress with a sour look on her face.

"What _was_ her name?" Veronica holds up the letter in the direction of the girl on the bunk adjacent to her. "I never thought to ask. Weird…"

"Why," the girl wonders, slipping her rifle off her shoulder and laying it on the far right of the mattress.

The older woman shrugs. "Just had a few questions for her."

"The letter didn't answer all of them?" She tucks her inventory under her neck as she stretches out to get some sleep. "Mom said it should."

She shrugs, keeping her feelings to herself for the moment. "What can I say, I'm the naturally curious type."

The daughter, unsure of whether or not to answer her question, commands the spherical robot into her arms at the word "down". "I'm not sure what to tell you, Miss Santangelo."

The Follower folds the letter back up and slips it into her pocket once more. "Think I could borrow him for a minute?" Veronica gestures with her armed hard to the bot being cradled in her arms.

"Of course." She lets go of his bulk as he floats up and to the side of his old friend as they head out the front door together. The girl gets comfortable on the lumpy bunk, closing her eyes to get some much needed sleep.

Veronica and ED-E wander about the outpost grounds under the brightly shining stars of a moonlit desert night. "I hope you're more talkative than the new 'you-know-who' is," the woman gently insists with that calm, even voice of hers.

The spheroid corrects her, keeping pace with her as they saunter toward the fence.

"That's what she said too, remember?" Her burning fist lights up the dark, peaceful night as it swings back and forth at her side. "Now look at us."

ED-E beeps in a conversational manner as Veronica asks him questions about what's been happening so far.

The three Followers from earlier that day come limping up to the fence, wounded, and demanding to see "Liaison Veronica".

The old woman and the robot run to the fenced checkpoint as the soldiers allow them in.

"They got away," the taller man tells her, cradling his bandaged elbow. "But it's confirmed now, always in groups of four, like you said from before."

The dark-haired woman, now missing her over-stuffed backpack, tries to roll the soreness from her right shoulder. "We even took the long route over the cliff side pass, but they still found us."

"What happened to the supplies," the former Scribe wonders, seeing the pack missing.

"Believe it or not, they took them," the short, brown-haired man tells her limping toward them. "Ripped the whole backpack off Mel's shoulders."

"That's new." Their leader mulls over this information for a moment. "There has to be a camp somewhere in the mountains nearby."

"Or maybe I'm right." The tall man rubs his elbow bandages gently. "Maybe it's not them."

The shorter man scoffs, holding his nearly crippled leg. "Frank, I saw it. We all saw it." He gestures to the rest of his wounded fellows. "It was red-plated armor."

"They're really back then." Veronica sighs, resting the warm knuckles of her power fist on her hip. "Caesar's Legion is back."

"We have to get in touch with the Colorado and let them know," the black woman insists, giving up on soothing her sore shoulders. "The soldiers could keep them from taking back the camp there if they have ample warning."

A frown tugs at the sides of her softly wrinkled face. "We have to make sure it's not a false alarm like last time." She drops the tone of her voice, staring them all in the eye as deadly serious as she can as she leans in. "Are all three of you sure it was a _real_ Legion party and not another bunch of Raiders with armor on?"

"They used tactics, Veronica," the tall man tells her, keeping his tone hushed as a patrolling soldier walks near their impromptu meeting at the gate. "They herded us into a dead end and tried to pick us off with small rifles and sophisticated melee weapons, not pipes and pistols."

"The flag-bearer shouted in Latin," the woman adds. "One of the words was 'Kaisar'. I think that means 'Caesar'."

The middle aged woman's frown pulls at her face even more as she ends gestures at the tall man and the dark-haired woman. "Frank, Mel, don't use the radio just in case, run this information personally to the nearest station. Tell them everything that's happened to you in detail, and don't leave anything out. Get some first-aid and rest and start out in the morning."

They give her an affirmative before heading off to the resupply building.

She turns to the only one left, the limping man. "Collins, you get looked-at too, then we'll leave tomorrow for our Outpost. Maybe one of our patrols knows which way they're heading."

"Got it." He hops to the same outbuilding as his fellows.

Veronica rubs the tired heaviness from her eyes with her free hand. "Not again," she whines quietly.

ED-E pipes up, reminding her of her own words from earlier, while adding in his own observations.

"She definitely going to need help, but I can't. Not right now, at least." The woman listens to the robot logically argue her into helping as she heads back inside for some sleep. "Alright, I'll help, but only after I get everything sorted out."

He beeps happily, jumping up and down.

Sitting on a randomly chosen bunk, she smiles, finally realizing something about her old friend. "She made you smarter, didn't she? At the Big Empty place, right?"

The battered propaganda bot lolls left to right, indirectly answering her question.

Veronica shakes her head at him as she relaxes into bed for the night.


	3. Re-Emergence, Submergence

The Mojave Outpost

At daybreak, the young woman wakes well-rested, refreshed, and ready to tackle a new day of adventure. She checks the time on her wrist computer then gathers up her things as she calls back her wandering ED-E.

The bot floats over from the other room, taking his place at her side as they make tracks to the next-door building.

"Where's Miss Santangelo and the Followers, Ed," the girl wonders. "Did they leave already?"

He confirms her supposition, leading the way inside the next building.

Dominating the immediate front of the room is a large half-circle shaped desk with a wooden wall divider directly behind it. Brightly colored, hole-riddled propaganda posters plastered haphazardly to the mock wall do nothing to detract from the bored atmosphere oozing off the many soldiers milling about or typing diligently at their stations.

The lack of desk attendance ruffles her feathers slightly as she waits for a handful of moments for any one of them to notice someone standing directly in front of the largest desk in the building. She clears her throat loudly, wrapping her knuckles on the desk. "Hello? Is this the registration office?"

A soldier donning a green beret comes out from behind the wood screen behind the half-circle desk, carrying a clipboard. "Come back later, we open at six A M."

She adjusts the bill of her baseball cap higher on her brow and frowns. "Can't you just attend to me now?"

The green beret frowns, but sets his board down on the front desk. "Welcome to the Mojave Registration offices," he greets in a bored tone, "How can I help you today?"

"I'm here to get registered."

The soldier reaches under the desk for a stack of forms. "Can you read and write?"

"Yes."

He pushes the papers toward her, laying a pencil over top the forms. "Fill these out and bring them back."

"But I was born here," she informs the man before he can disappear behind the divider with his clipboard.

He sighs, turning back around. "Then do you have your birth papers with you?"

"Obviously not since I'm in here, but I was born in the Mojave."

He directs her over to one of the typist soldiers behind himself. "Go to one of the Sergeants over here and they'll find your records."

She picks the seat of the least crabby-looking person in fatigues.

"Registration," the woman asks, never looking away from her screen.

"Yes ma'am," the daughter replies with an enthusiastic nod of her head.

"Lost, stolen, or never received?"

"Never received."

Her hands go still after she clears her screen. "Name, age, date of birth."

"Arcadia Darrenforth, twenty-three years, the beginning of September, twenty-two eighty-five."

The soldier's lightning fast hands type as she says the words. "Place of birth, and current occupation?"

"Newly occupied Nipton under the care of the Followers of the Apocalypse, and, uh…"

ED-E answers the question for her.

"Courier," the girl repeats.

After a solid minute of quiet typing and frowning, her computer beeps. The soldier immediately gets up and crosses to the line of filing cabinets at the opposite end of the room. The woman pulls out a large, loosely bound book of papers, looking through them one by one as she walks back to her desk.

The antsy young lady waits impatiently in her seat for the desk soldier to find her credentials. She tries to stave off the boredom in the room by mentally naming objects off in Latin.

"Can I have your parent or parents' last name?"

"Darrenforth."

She grabs a handful of pages and turns back to the near front, muttering the letters D A and R under her breath. "Darrenforth," she finally says. "Serenity and—" The Sergeant's expression goes from a neutral bored to a scared sort of excited as she re-reads the two names on the birth certificate in the files. She looks at the young lady for a moment, stunned. "C-Could you wait here, please?" The woman dashes to the green beret soldier manning the front desk, waving the records in his face frantically. "Major!"

Arcadia turns in her seat watching as they have a hushed, but obviously excited conversation at the other end of the room.

The desk Sergeant points from the records to the girl in her seat, as the Major squints hard at the writing.

The daughter can vaguely make out the green hatted Major ordering the soldier to double check it.

She explains herself with broad hand gestures then points at the open book in her hand once more.

The Major acts skeptical at first, but yanks the records away, giving it a second look himself. Her superior meets her exasperation with an even greater level of shock. He directs her back to her chair immediately with a stern pointing of a finger.

The soldier clears her throat, sitting herself a little straighter in the girl's presence. "I'm sorry for the delay, it turns out you were registered in the older files and never received a copy. We'll have someone make one for you as fast as possible."

"Thank you." The young woman feels caught between discomfort and pride as she goes for her caps pouch. "How much does it cost?"

The lady soldier smiles. "No charge, Miss, the Republic will be glad to take care of that."

Before Arcadia can ask why, ED-E nudges her shoulder with the end of his laser weapon.

The girl holds her tongue on the subject, frowning almost imperceptibly. "Is it okay if I wait here until I get my paperwork, Sergeant?"

"It would be an honor."

The girl notices a subdued delighted hop in the soldier's step as she leaves her desk and attends to duties elsewhere. She visibly slumps lower in her chair as she pulls her hat over her eyes, hoping they stop noticing her and her eye-bot.

By the time her registration is placed in her hand, half the outpost is staring at them both as they make their exit.

"I don't like this Ed," the lady tells him, stooping down to pick the ripe wild Buffalo Gourd. "It's like painting a giant bullseye on your back." She stores the seed in her side satchel, crossing around to the front door of the bunk house to barter with her new papers.

An equally enthusiastic level of disbelief and thrill is exhibited by everyone in the second building, with the same kind of whispered gusto, after brandishing her papers at the merchant, who then displays her parental fame to everybody within arm's reach. Stares and hushed conversations, as happy as they are, only serve to irritate her naturally modest sensibilities.

Arcadia finishes her bartering business then leaves for the highway outside the post, stopping only once to look up and admire the Unification Statue standing tall and proud at the boundary of the outpost grounds. "They act like mom is one of these statues. Do you think that's good or bad?"

ED-E debates her question with his concise logic.

"Good point." She stares up at the figure in the long coat, wondering where her mother and father have disappeared to, again.

The two of them begin their travels down the now vehicle-less stretch of road into the Wasteland. At the bottom of the gently sloping land, they reach a junction in the ancient roadway marked with a large faded green and rusted sign.

The spheroid points his laser at the word "Primm", suggesting she look for an old man named Johnson Nash when she gets there.

The girl furrows her brow. "He doesn't sound like one of mom's friends. His name isn't on any of the letters."

ED-E informs the daughter that he was an old employer of her mother's as he floats toward the left leg of the highway.

Nipton Road Rest Stop

After making a supply drop at the nearby general store, a sluggish merchant caravan and its armed guard passes the ancient Nipton Rest Stop, taking the gentle slope of the cement incline instead of the uneven ground of the broken road.

"Bill." The young, dark haired man in the black Sherriff's hat, marching behind and to the left of the Pack Brahmin, leans over to his right and nudges another young man's shoulder with the muzzle of his Caravan Shotgun. "Did you see that blue suit behind us yesterday?"

The man keeping step next to him in metal armor a dingy bandana licks his dry lips. "Yep."

"That's what they look like in Vault City."

The young guard on the right gives a curt laugh as he thinks about that fact. "What the hell's one of those stuck-up snobs doing out here?"

The one on the right adjusts his hat higher up on his brow, wiping the beads of sweat away. "Probably getting' their kicks watchin' the ' _Outsiders_ ' in their ' _primitive conditions'_."

Bill rests his Varmint Rifle on his shoulder, keeping pace with the mooing animal in front of him. "Ever notice how Vault City's near the heart of Republic territory, and they still act like they're better than the rest of us."

"I noticed that the last time I went. Told my ma what happened there, she said they sound less like assholes than before."

The one in the bandana scoffs. "If that's nice, I'd hate to see mean."

The Brahmin's mooing goes from annoyed to distressed in the span of a breath as it stops abruptly in its tracks and begins clopping around in half circles.

The merchant at the front of the two-headed cow tries to calm it down, but only agitates more. It kicks and paws at the ground, huffing hard breaths through its snouts.

As the sun climbs higher in the Mojave sky, the heat of the desert radiates through the heavy denim and leather material of the young lady's armor. She takes off her red ballcap long enough to mop the dripping sweat from her brow, cursing her intolerance of weighted armor.

The traveling pair elects to take a rest under the blue-green metal canopy of the Pre-War rest stop.

The daughter sits in the cool shade, taking a mental respite from her not-too-demanding adventure so far. Her usually busy thoughts wander to her mother and father as she stares off into the distance aimlessly. Her relaxation is short-lived, however, as it is cut short by angry moos and people yelling from the lower part of the highway across the dirt road.

The two rush toward the cement barriers, stopping at the lip to watch the drama unfold beneath.

A man in metal armor wearing a dingy grey bandana aims his weapon at the bucking cow.

"Shoot my Bess, and you don't get paid, hot head," the woman in leather armor and a Stormwatcher's cap yells at the man. "I guarantee it!"

A young man in red flannel and Sherriff's hat holsters his gun on his back tries to grab at one of the heavy ropes holding down the bulging pack of stuff, but is abruptly shoved away by the nearer of the two heads. He stumbles back, regrouping with a determined frown.

Arcadia jumps down to lend aid. "Circles Ed, we're wrangling."

He beeps a confirmation, whirring toward the nuisance of a bovine. He makes circles all around it as the girl edges closer, drawing her machete.

"Don't you dare kill my Brahmin," the woman yells at her. "Or I swear—"

"Shut up and let me help you," she shouts back, getting angry with the merchant. The Courier's daughter throws herself toward the distracted animal, cutting the rope off it with a few swift, proficient cuts of her blade. "Get the Brahmin off its feet, quick!"

The four of them pick one side of the animal and push in unison until it tips over onto its side.

"You," she points at the woman in leathers. "Sit near the head, and gently stroke the faces!"

The woman does as she's told, and after a minute or so the pack animal calms itself down, responding to its owner's reassuring touch.

Arcadia kneels near the hooves, taking up each one in turn after a brief examination. The last hoof on the right front yields the answer to the problem. "I thought so, there's a rock in the hoof." She fishes out the jagged piece of rock, tossing it away as she dusts off her hands. "There we go, I got it."

"But how did you know," the merchant wonders, still patting the heads gingerly.

"There's debris all over the place, Brahmin have cloven hooves," girl simply says, beckoning ED-E back to her side.

"Ain't we lucky you happened by, vault dweller," the dark-haired man tells her, tipping his hat to her out of courtesy.

"It's kind of surprising someone like you knows about animals." The one in the bandana looks her up and down, almost mocking her with his condescending tone.

She elects to ignore the simpleton bodyguards, addressing the owner directly. "You're welcome by the way."

"Uh, thanks," the merchant woman manages, more concerned about getting her pack animal back to its feet more than anything else. "Next time we meet, I can guarantee you a discount."

She inclines her head respectfully, heading on down the highway once more, with ED-E in tow.

"You see that, Martin," he nods in the direction of the girl going on her marry way. "Still stuck up, like all the rest in the City."

"Shut the hell up, Bill." He stares for a moment at the back of her red-capped head, contemplating the minute feeling of familiarity at the back of his mind.

The merchant clears her throat loudly, clearly annoyed. "Time is money in my profession, and we have a cow to re-pack. Chop chop, gentlemen."

"Yes ma'am," the one called Martin says, tipping his hat to his lady boss.

The man in metal armor grunts his dissatisfaction with the sudden need for manual labor on his part. "I get paid to shoot, not pick up junk."

"Then you must not like your paycheck either." The merchant starts collecting her boxes and bags of parts and small guns, carefully replacing them on the back of her upright cow.

"I didn't say I wasn't gonna," he grumbles, collecting spare parts strewn about the place.


End file.
